Chicken Little Jane on the Big John

Excerpt

“Chicken Little–Chicken Little!”

Mrs. Morton’s face was flushed with the heat. She was frying doughnuts over a hot stove and had been calling Chicken Little at intervals for the past ten minutes. Providence did not seem to have designed Mrs. Morton for frying doughnuts. She was very sensitive to heat and had little taste for cooking. She had laid aside her silks and laces on coming to the ranch, but the poise and dignity that come from years of gentle living were still hers. Her formal manner always seemed a trifle out of place in the old farm kitchen. On this particular morning she was both annoyed and indignant.

“She is the most provoking child!” she exclaimed in exasperation as Dr. Morton stepped into the kitchen.

“Provoking–who?–Chicken Little? What’s the matter now?”

“That child is a perfect fly-away. I can no more lay my hands on her when I need her than I could on a flea. She is off to the pasture, or out watching the men plow, or trotting away, no one knows where, with the two pups. And the worst of it is you encourage her in it, Father. You forget she is thirteen years old–almost a woman in size! She is too old to be such a tomboy. She should be spending her time on her music and sewing, or learning to cook–now that school’s out for the summer.”

Dr. Morton laughed.

“Oh, let up on the music for a year or two, Mother. Chicken Little’s developing finely. She’s a first rate little cook already. You couldn’t have prepared a better breakfast yourself than she gave us that morning you were sick. You don’t realize how much she does help you, and as to running about the farm, that will be the making of her. She is growing tall and strong and rosy. You don’t want to make her into an old woman.”

“It is all very well to talk, Father, but I intend to have my only daughter an accomplished lady, and I think you ought to help me. She is too old to be wasting her time this way. But have you any idea where she is? I want to send her over to Benton’s after eggs. I have used all mine up for settings, and I can’t make the custard pies you are so fond of, till I get some.”

Dr. Morton laughed again.

“Yes, I have an exact idea where she is. Set your kettle back on the stove a moment and come and see.”

Mrs. Morton followed him, leaving her doughnuts rather reluctantly. Ranch life had proved full of hardships to her. The hardships had been intensified because it was almost impossible to secure competent servants, or, indeed, servants of any kind. The farmer’s daughters were proud–too proud to work in a neighbor’s kitchen even if they went shabby or, as often happened among the poorer ones, barefoot, for lack of the money they might easily have earned. Mrs. Morton was not a strong woman and the unaccustomed drudgery was telling on her health and spirits. Dr. Morton, on the other hand, enjoyed the open-air life and the freedom from conventional dress and other hampering niceties.

Mrs. Morton followed her husband through the long dining room and little hall to the square parlor beyond....